Latest news with #CarriePatel
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Xbox's Latest Big Single-Player RPG Was Originally Pitched As Skyrim + Destiny
Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed is a wonderful single-player RPG featuring large fantasy zones to explore and chatty companions. But that wasn't always the plan. In fact, it was originally designed as an online game similar to Destiny. According to a new Bloomberg article, Avowed—out now on Xbox, PC, and Game Pass—started life back in 2018 as something the then-independent Obsidian could present to prospective buyers. The game was planned to be the Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity studio's magnum opus and was going to be an online fantasy RPG mashing together Destiny and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The ambitious pitch called for players to adventure together online in a huge open world. Later in 2018, Microsoft bought Obsidian and work continued on Avowed. But the game struggled to come together, and by the time Xbox announced Avowed publicly in 2020, Obsidian had cut the multiplayer out entirely. Then in January 2021, Obsidian scrapped that version of the game, which had been in development for two years. Carrie Patel took over as director and she implemented two big changes. The first was to focus more on the world and lore of Pillars of Eternity, and the second was to replace the Skyrim-like open world with large 'zones.' This was the same approach used in The Outer Worlds, Obsidian's sci-fi RPG from 2019, and it helped the team build different, varied locales and skip over a ton of technical hurdles. 'With any game you think, 'OK, we can't climb every mountain — which ones are really worth the effort for us?'' Patel told Bloomberg. 'We knew from The Outer Worlds that we could build a really great game with 'open zones,' and that also adds some advantages in terms of letting you really theme your areas more distinctly and intentionally, and provide a sense of progression as the player's going from one environment to the next.' All that hard work and the messy development cycle, including multiple vertical slices and reboots, paid off in the end, as Avowed has received near-universal praise from critics and has proved a hit for Xbox's Game Pass service. 'I feel like I've learned so much over the past four years that I wish I'd known at the start of this process,' admitted Patel. 'It's definitely been a job where the highs are really high and the lows are really low.' As for what's next? Patel says she'd 'love' to do more with the Avowed team in the Pillars of Eternity world. But for now, Obsidian won't say what's next for the Xbox workhorse studio. . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
WIRED
13-02-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
Director of the Game ‘Avowed' Says AI Can't Replace Human Creativity
Feb 13, 2025 9:00 AM 'Good game stories are going to be written by good narrative designers,' says Obsidian's Carrie Patel. The new fantasy RPG she helmed gets an early release today. Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Photograph: Obsidian/Carrie Patel As the video games industry continues to face massive layoffs, narrative jobs are taking the biggest hit. The industry's job cuts over the past couple of years—more than 30,000 roles were eliminated in 2023 and 2024—disproportionately affected narrative designers, the creative professionals who craft the story elements of the game and give a title its emotional punch. Even the director of the game Avowed, Carrie Patel—a successful author and narrative developer with over a decade of experience at the game studio Obsidian Entertainment—feels lucky she was able to start her career years ago. She can't imagine trying to break into the industry under today's conditions. 'It just seems to be harder and harder to find a path in,' Patel says. 'I've heard colleagues hired within the last three or five years say essentially the same thing.' Patel has been with Obsidian since 2013, when she started as a narrative designer on the first Pillars of Eternity , a role-playing game released in 2015. She was narrative colead on the 2018 sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire , and went on to work on the narrative design for 2019's The Outer Worlds . Avowed , a first-person fantasy RPG set in the same universe as Obsidian's acclaimed Pillars of Eternity series, is available today on Windows PC and Xbox Series X via early access. The game's official launch is Tuesday, February 18. Patel is excited to launch a title with a rich, immersive story—especially as the talent required to make such a game becomes more scarce in the industry. 'I think RPGs, especially the kind we make, give players an opportunity to show that they're excited about games that are deep, nuanced, and respect their time,' she says. Part of Obsidian's storytelling success has been its unwillingness to rely on artificial intelligence. 'Good game stories are going to be written by good narrative designers,' Patel says. AI use at studios has grown over the past few years; a survey of industry workers published earlier this year reported that 52 percent of respondents said they worked at companies using generative AI to develop games. Scenes from Avowed . Courtesy of Obsidian Entertainment The game gets an early release today. Courtesy of Obsidian Entertainment Despite corporate interest in the tech, however, game makers are less positive about AI than they have been in past years. 'I don't think any technology is going to replace human creativity,' Patel says. 'I think what makes our games special, our stories special, and our dialogs and characters special, are things that I haven't seen any AI replicate.' Other developers are certainly trying. Last March, Ubisoft showcased a conversational generative AI prototype that allows players to voice-chat with a non-player character. Patel feels encouraged by the reception to games with intricate narratives like Baldur's Gate 3 , which speaks to there being 'an audience for these thoughtful, sometimes complex games.' 'Our goal has never been to make the longest game you're going to spend hundreds of hours in,' Patel says. 'Our goal has always been to make a really great game that gives you an adventure that you feel like you're at the center of in this immersive new world.' Avowed 's general release is on February 18. Courtesy of Obsidian Entertainment It takes place in the Pillars of Eternity universe. Courtesy of Obsidian Entertainment While Patel says every team's culture will be a little different, depending on who's on it, strong leadership is key. It's important to have 'enough decisiveness to drive the project toward completion, to give people clarity about what they're doing.' That still means being open to feedback about what's working, or not. 'You want a team to be an organism that is always improving,' she says. Less effective: attitudes like those of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who recently said that companies need more 'masculine energy' in their workplace. As tech companies roll back their programs supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, and politicians take aim at policies that assist marginalized communities, Patel's leadership and attitude are firmly the opposite of 'masculine energy.' 'I can say I have definitely never thought about that specific phrase before,' Patel says, jokingly adding, 'yeah, I'll start thinking about the Roman Empire soon too.'
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Avowed won't have enemy scaling, director confirms, but it will have jank: "You gotta accept a little jank to do something fun and creative"
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. We are very close to reaching the end of the rainbow with Avowed's impending release, but Obsidian game director Carrie Patel wants you to have reasonable expectations: no, Avowed won't have enemy scaling, though it sounds like the game may feature some jank. "Enemies do not scale with your level," Patel puts it plainly in a new rapid-fire interview with MinnMax. This might surprise you – level scaling is becoming more common, evidenced by RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077 and Diablo 4 – but I'm looking forward to exploring Avowed's dangerous cliffsides with the knowledge that power is power. One of the most liberating feelings I've experienced involves returning to a game like Dark Souls' starting area, as overleveled as a grass-fed cow, and chewing up everything in my path. Less surprising than the game's lack of level scaling, however, is the fact that Avowed might have some bugs at launch. Big, buggy launches, such as Civilization 7's recent stumble into the spotlight, have seemingly become synonymous with AAA gaming. That said, bugs have always been part of gaming, and some people have always been huffy about it. In their defense, I don't think anyone has ever outright enjoyed paying for a game and finding out it's easier to break than glass. In 2009, a younger GamesRadar+ even reported on the fact that the EU was proposing a law that would secure refunds for broken video game releases. But, if we ignore gamers' rights for just a second, we can recognize that most unique, new products aren't flawless at first. To that point, Patel thinks jank is unavoidable while taking risks. "You gotta accept a little jank to do something fun and creative," Patel tells MinnMax. We'll find out how "fun and creative" Avowed is when it releases on February 18. Avowed director confirms the game follows The Outer Worlds' lead to skip New Game Plus, but DLC is still a "maybe."
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Avowed director says about a third of the Pillars of Eternity developers are working on Obsidian's new action-RPG and teases crossover characters
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. About a third of the team that made Pillars of Eternity is now working on Obsidian's upcoming action-RPG, Avowed, director Carrie Patel has revealed. In a quickfire interview with MinnMax, Patel was asked what Pillars of Eternity fans are hoping to get from Avowed, which takes place in the same world of Eora. She said Pillars fans want to "see the world they got to know over two games in a big immersive space around them that they can explore." Asked if that has been accomplished in Avowed, she replied, "mission accomplished." She also revealed that "maybe a third of the team that worked on Pillars is on Avowed." Finally, she confirmed that there will be Pillars of Eternity characters in Avowed, and when asked if there will be more than three, she replied in the affirmative. Hitting Xbox Series X, PC, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate on February 18, Avowed will take players back to Eora for the first time since 2018's Pillars of Eternity 2. And if you haven't played the Pillars games, you needn't worry; Obsidian designed Avowed specifically to be an entry point to the plague-ravaged Living Lands. Obviously longtime Pillars fans will have a lot of fun with the crossover content, but it's not necessary to understanding the story. "It can't start in a way that just feels crappy": Avowed devs are turning to animation to solve an RPG "challenge" of offering a sense of progression without sacrificing a strong start.
